Microsoft: "As Soon As You've Had Touch, You'll Want It On Everything"

Microsoft is showing off their new products here the company's Windows 8 event in New York City, and they've been shoving the word "touch" down everyone's throat — not in a mean and rude way, but it's a strong focus of their's no doubt. They mentioned that "as soon as you've had touch, you'll want it on everything."

This is a fairly different approach compared to Apple, who have always said that reaching out to touch your laptop's display is counter-intuitive. Steve Jobs famously dismissed the idea when launching the iPad, and Tim Cook has shown no signs of altering that strategy. Microsoft thinks otherwise, saying that once you try out a touchscreen-equipped device, you'll want that experience on all your devices, which might be true for some people, but maybe not everyone.

We even mentioned in our recent Microsoft Surface review with Windows RT that utilizing and navigating around a classic desktop view is extremely tricky using your fingers, even with all of Microsoft's changes to the user interface. The text happens to be way too small to easily tap with your finger, and it's overall really annoying compared to a tablet-optimized solution.

We've seen this philosophy of Microsoft's for the past couple of years, and OEM manufacturers have hopped on board to deliver touchscreen-enabled desktop computers — not just tablets. While larger screens definitely improve the touch experience on the classic desktop UI, it almost seems that keyboard, mice, and trackpads should stay the norm for desktop and laptop computers, and leave the touchscreens to the tablets.